88 Mr. RoYLE on the Lycium of Dioscorides. 



having been by the older botanists called Lycium, are certainly in favour of its 

 being the plant yielding one kind of Lycium. 



It is remarkable, however, that the genus Berheris, of which one species, as 

 before mentioned, was supposed by Prosper Alpinus to be Lycium, possesses so 

 many of the same properties as some species of the genus Rhamnus. Spina 

 Appendix, Oxyacanthos, Amyrheris and Crespinus are the names given to the 

 common Barberry by Pliny, Galen, Avicenna and Matthiolus. The fruit is 

 a mild astringent acid ; the leaves have similar properties, but in a less degree. 

 The young bark is said to be purgative, and was formerly given in jaundice. 

 The bark and wood, both of the stem and root, are yellow, bitter and styptic, 

 and have been employed as astringents. The root contains a yellow colouring 

 matter, sufficiently abundant* to be employed for dyeing flax, cotton and wool, 

 and to give a lustre to prepared leather. It is found also in every part of 

 Europe, and in the western parts of Asia, from Portugal to Georgia, and from 

 Crete to Norway, occurring in the plains in northern latitudes, and on moun- 

 tains in the south, as on Lebanon. Its geographical distribution, therefore, is 

 not incompatible with that of Lycium, while Berberis cretica is chiefly found in 

 the islands : one species is moreover called Berberis buxifolia. It is singular 

 that a plant so remarkable as the Barberry for its conspicuous flowers, pecu- 

 liar odour, acid fruit and leaves, thorny nature, and yellow wood, should not be 

 noticed by Dioscorides, if it was then, as now, an inhabitant of the same loca- 

 lities. It may, perhaps, be more than an accidental coincidence, that the old 

 English name of Barberry is Pepper idge-bush, and that the fruit of Lycium is 

 compared by Dioscorides to that of mxi§i, which is always translated 'pepper'. 



From everything that has been yet adduced, it is evident that considerable 

 uncertainty still prevails respecting the plant producing the Lycium of Asia 

 Minor, while that which afforded the original and most efficacious kind im- 

 ported from India has hardly been hinted at ; for the opinion of Garcias ab 

 Orto that Acacia Catechu was the plant, is unsupported by any proof, and is 

 incompatible with the writings of Oriental authors to be afterwards adduced. 

 If we suppose that the same plant produced the Lycium of India and of Lycia, 



* Vide analysis by Brande, Bulletin des Sciences Medicales de F^russac, torn. vi. p. 186. Vauquelin 

 has further proved, that few woods are superior to that of Berberis tinctoria, a variety of B. asiatica, 

 for dyeing yellow. 



